Advocate calls for revolt against age discrimination


DISCRIMINATION against older Australians remains deeply entrenched and largely invisible six years after the introduction of the Age Discrimination Act, the Human Rights Commission has declared.

In a report on barriers confronting older Australians, the commission finds that despite the law and demands for employees, mature age workers remain under-utilised with a participation rate lower than in comparable countries.

Despite the prevalence of age discrimination, not one claim of age discrimination has won in the Federal Court, Human Rights Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick said yesterday.


Ms Broderick has appealed to the public to ''start outing age discrimination whenever we see and experience it''.

The commission received 174 complaints of age discrimination last year, up from 151 the previous year, with about 50 per cent of complaints relating to employment.

''Ultimately it's about equality,'' Ms Broderick said. ''This paper calls for a social movement - it calls for all of us to step up and address the one area of discrimination that has the potential to directly affect each and every one of us - the area of discrimination that is based on the simple human fact of growing older."

It was vital that Australians recognised age discrimination as something that stripped people of their individuality, robbed them of choice and control and prevented them from being assessed on the basis of merit.

''Ultimately, age discrimination - like any form of discrimination - will result in less diversity in our workplaces.

''It is both ironic and troubling that, as populations around the world are ageing, our consultations indicate that unlawful age discrimination has not only become silently entrenched in public life, but has also become one of the most significant barriers to workplace participation for mature-age workers in Australia today.'' While anti-discrimination laws were powerful in fighting unlawful age discrimination, Ms Broderick said it was ''imperative that we also see the groundswell of a social movement, similar to that which has happened with other forms of discrimination in our society.

''This would both build awareness and challenge broader ageist attitudes in our society.''

"DISCRIMINATION against older Australians remains deeply entrenched and largely invisible six years after the introduction of the Age Discrimination Act, the Human Rights Commission has declared."

Yeah, I know, I applied for a job in the hard core porn industry as a stunt cok & got knocked back.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Oct 2^nd, 2010 at 12:55pm:


Ah, pansi, they asked me to pass on their "thanks" for auditioning for the "Yummy Mummy" segment, but to gently point out that they didn`t mean for Egyptian type mummys to turn up.

I did join Yahoo about 5 yrs ago, will that do for a circus?

Yeah, those older women can be a bit funny.